Fowlkes: Stephan Bonnar's decision to end on low note as frustrating as it is baffling

If you’re trying to figure out what Stephan Bonnar might have been thinking, just stop right now. Don’t waste one more second on it. Don’t scorch one more brain cell trying to decipher how using steroids before the biggest opportunity of his career could have possibly seemed like a good idea at the time.

It wasn’t. It couldn’t have been. And if Bonnar had thought it through even just a little bit before pumping himself full of Drostanolone before UFC 153 (or at least that’s the story told by the UFC’s own drug testing), he would have seen that.

Consider the situation. Here he was, getting a crack at the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world, quite possibly the best fighter this sport has ever had, and under circumstances that made it seem like a no-lose proposition. Bonnar was more or less retired anyway when he got the offer for a short-notice fight with Silva. It wasn’t as if his career was on the line. It wasn’t do-or-die. It was, “Hey, why not?” All he had to do was show up and try hard and he’d get a paycheck and a pat on the back from fans and the UFC. Then he could drift off and call it a career, content that he’d made one last lunge for that brass ring.

I can really only think of one way he could have possibly screwed that up, and this is it. Now instead of being remembered as a hard-headed, hard-charging scrapper who gave it everything he had, he’ll be remembered as a two-time steroid cheat with a mediocre record. He’ll be the guy who made the worst of a good situation. And for what?

Imagine, if you’re capable of such a stretch, that Bonnar had won this fight. Imagine he’d found some way to penetrate Silva’s Jedi routine long enough to shock the world. Imagine he even genuinely believed that the difference between winning this fight and losing it could be found in a syringe, and then imagine that he ended up being right.

In that case, he’d be even worse off right now. After pulling off the greatest upset since David vs. Goliath, he’d find himself yanked off the pedestal and cast down into the dungeon. He’d have the greatest accomplishment of his career wiped out by a dirty urine sample.

Of course, cheaters don’t usually plan on getting caught. Maybe he thought he could slip past the UFC’s drug tests in Brazil, where there’s no athletic commission to keep an eye on things. Maybe he had paid so little attention to cautionary tales like that of Chris Leben in the U.K. that he thought the UFC’s testing program was just for show. Or maybe he simply thought he could cycle off in time.

Say he’d been right. Say he beat Silva with a little chemical help (even though others have tried and failed with that approach before), and then beat the drug test, too. Then he’d be the only one who knew what a fraud he was in the biggest moment of his life. That almost seems worse. If you had to cheat to win, and if you got away with it, how many times would you need to be congratulated for it before it started to eat away at you from the inside? How would you not lose sleep wondering whether you could have done it fair and square? And again, that’s the best-case scenario for Bonnar in this situation.

I suppose we should take a second here to express some gratitude that the UFC does this testing to begin with, even when it doesn’t technically have to. If there’s any bright side to Bonnar’s decision to end his career on a cheating note, it’s that the UFC caught him. It does make you wonder how many more fighters UFC officials might catch if they did that testing randomly, year-round, rather than on a pre-event schedule that fighters can set their watches by. But hey, baby steps. The good part about Bonnar getting nabbed by the UFC rather than an athletic commission is that, historically, fighters have been a lot less eager to challenge the results with claims of tainted supplements or mishandled samples when it’s the boss that’s behind it all.

Bonnar may be the one to buck that trend, but I doubt it will matter. Especially after he’s already been busted once, he’s not going to be able to talk his way out of this with the old contaminated creatine defense. He could claim it was an injury or a rough weight cut that drove him to it, but that’s a little like admitting that yes, you robbed a bank, but only because you really needed the money. The sympathy from fight fans won’t exactly come pouring out. And this time, if his retirement holds, he won’t even get the chance to move forward with his career and put it behind him.

That’s the problem with going out this way. When the lowest possible note is the last one you play, it has a way of hanging in the air long after you’re gone. It’s the kind of thing people don’t forget, even if they never understand.

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